Bangladesh island gets UNHCR nod for Rohingya

ARAB NEWS

SHEHAB SUMON

04 June 2021

Bangladeshi authorities have shifted 18,000 out of a planned 100,000 people to the island to take pressure off Cox’s Bazar. (Reuters/File

• The UNHCR had voiced concerns as to whether it was safe as the island is vulnerable to severe weather and flooding

DHAKA: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recognized Bhasan Char as a potential location for the Rohingya seeking shelter in Bangladesh despite recent protests by some of the refugees living in the remote, cyclone-prone island.

Since December, Bangladeshi authorities have shifted 18,000 out of a planned 100,000 people to the island to take pressure off Cox’s Bazar, a city in Bangladesh that already hosts more than 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims, members of an ethnic and religious minority group who fled persecution in neighboring Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.

Boat carrying 81 Rohingya found stranded on Indonesia island

the Intelligencer

YAYAN ZAMZAMI
Associated Press
June 4, 2021

Ethnic Rohingya people rest on a beach after their boat was stranded on Idaman Island in East Aceh, Indonesia, Friday, June 4, 2021. Villagers in Indonesia's Aceh province discovered a stranded boat carrying dozens of Rohingya Muslims, including children, who had left a refugee camp in Bangladesh, officials said.Zik Maulana/AP

Ethnic Rohingya people rest on a beach after their boat was stranded on Idaman Island in East Aceh, Indonesia, Friday, June 4, 2021. Villagers in Indonesia's Aceh province discovered a stranded boat carrying dozens of Rohingya Muslims, including children, who had left a refugee camp in Bangladesh, officials said.Zik Maulana/AP

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Villagers in Indonesia's Aceh province on Friday discovered a stranded boat carrying 81 Rohingya Muslims, including children, who had left a refugee camp in Bangladesh, officials said.

Miftach Cut Adek, the leader of the local tribal fishing community, said 90 people were on board the boat when it left the refugee camp on Feb. 11, but nine died during the trip.

Bangladesh adds feather to cap as UN lauds Rohingya rehabilitation in Bay of Bengal island

THE ECONOMIC TIMES
Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury
ET Bureau
Jun 04, 2021,

Bhashan Char is a much better place than the Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar, observed the UN delegation that visited the island recently

Bangladesh has added yet another feather to its cap with the UN lauding its efforts to address the woes of Rohingya refugees including in the Bhashan Char island in Bay of Bengal.

Bhashan Char is a much better place than the Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar, observed the UN delegation that visited the island recently. "The Bangladesh government has made an important investment in Bhashan Char…," said UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees (Protection) Rouf Mazou.

UN Urges Bangladesh to Move Rohingya to Bay of Bengal Island Gradually

Radio Free Asia
2021-04-16

Rohingya walk by houses built for them by the Bangladesh government on Bhashan Char Island in Noakhali district, March 13, 2021.

The United Nations refugee agency is urging Bangladesh to slow down its relocation of Rohingya to a low-lying island because measures to protect residents from storms and flooding are not fully in place, UNHCR in Dhaka told BenarNews on Friday.

Meanwhile, the foreign minister said, international agencies must help foot the cost of housing what could eventually be 100,000 refugees on Bhashan Char, an island in the Bay of Bengal. So far, Bangladesh’s government has covered that cost.

Rohingya refugees on an island of no return

ASIA TIMES

by Bertil Lintner
December 21, 2020 

Bangladesh is moving Rohingya refugees to an isolated island amid fears militant Islamic groups are penetrating border camps

Rohingya refugees perform prayers as they attend a ceremony organized to remember the first anniversary of a military crackdown that prompted a massive exodus of people from Myanmar to Bangladesh, at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia on August 25, 2018. Photo: AFP / Dibyangshu Sarkar

CHIANG MAI – They were told that they would be the first to be repatriated to Myanmar.

But when the first lot of 1,642 Rohingya Muslim refugees arrived on Bangladesh’s Bhasan Char island on December 3, they were herded into a huge, newly built settlement consisting of concrete living quarters, two hospitals, clinics, mosques, teaching centers, cyclone shelters, playgrounds and a police station.

Located 34 kilometers from the mainland, or a three-hour journey by boat, the island and what has been constructed there show that the Bangladeshi authorities are accepting the fact that they are stuck with a permanent refugee population. None of the estimated one million Rohingyas in Bangladesh are going back to Myanmar in the foreseeable future, if at all.

Fears of forced removals as Bangladesh moves hundreds of Rohingya refugees to remote island

CNN

Helen Regan and Rebecca Wright, 
Updated -December 5, 2020

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees being relocated to island 02:56

(CNN)Hundreds of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are being relocated to a controversial island facility in the Bay of Bengal today amid fears that some could be coerced to move there and held indefinitely. 

A ship carrying 1642 refugees is traveling to Bhasan Char, an island about 40 kilometers (24 miles) off the coast near the city of Chittagong, according to Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh Minister of State for Foreign Affairs.

Facilities on Bhasan Char island can accommodate up to 100,000 refugees. Credit: Salman Saeed

Rohingya refugees ferried to floating Bangladesh island

EAST BAY TIMES

By The Associated Press |
PUBLISHED: December 4, 2020
By Julhas Alam | Associated Press

About 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in August 2017

A health worker checks the temperature of Rohingya Muslims arriving at Bhasan Char, or floating island, in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh. Authorities in Bangladesh have begun relocating thousands of Rohingya refugees to an isolated island despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process. (AP Photo/Saleh Noman)

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Authorities in Bangladesh on Friday sent the first group of more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees to an isolated island despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process.

The 1,642 refugees boarded seven Bangladeshi naval vessels in the port of Chittagong for the trip to Bhashan Char, according to an official who could not be named in accordance with local practice.

After about a three-hour trip they arrived at the island, which was once regularly submerged by monsoon rains but now has flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals and mosques built at a cost of more than $112 million by the Bangladesh navy.

Located 21 miles from the mainland, the island surfaced only 20 years ago and was never inhabited.

Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh Being Moved to Isolated Island in “Dangerous Mass Detention”

DEMOCRACY

NOW!

HEADLINE

DEC 04, 2020

In Bangladesh, human rights advocates are condemning the relocation of thousands of Rohingya refugees to an isolated island — hours away from the mainland. Police on Thursday escorted refugees, who were put on buses for the long trek from Cox’s Bazar to a port town, where they’ll then be put on boats en route to Bhasan Char island, which is prone to flooding, frequent cyclones, and only emerged from the ocean two decades ago. The island has never been inhabited. Two aid workers told Reuters refugees were pressured into the move by government officials, who threatened them or offered them cash in exchange. Human Rights Watch called the refugees’ relocation “nothing short of a dangerous mass detention of the Rohingya people in violation of international human rights obligations.”

Link : Here

Malaysia finds Rohingya feared drowned hiding on island

Aljazeera
27th July 2020

Malaysia has stepped up patrols around its maritime borders as Rohingya attempt to reach the country by boat.

Malaysia has stepped up patrols in waters near Langkawi island since the start of the coronavirus pandemic [File: Olivia Harris/Reuters]

Twenty-six Rohingya refugees, who had been feared drowned while trying to swim ashore close to the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi, have been found alive, hiding in the vegetation on a nearby islet, a senior coastguard official said on Monday.

Malaysia does not recognise refugee status, but the country is a common destination for the mostly Muslim Rohingya, hundreds of thousands of whom live in densely populated camps in Bangladesh after escaping a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.